On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 12:20 -0400, Claude Jones wrote: > On Wednesday 25 May 2005 11:03 am, Les Mikesell wrote: > > On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 09:02, Claude Jones wrote: > > > What do you guys think? > > > > I think perl was really designed to be your second program language - > > that is, the one you turn to when sh, awk, sed, etc. don't quite handle > > the problem you want to solve - instead of being the one you learn > > first. As such, you'd already understand programming concepts, > > regular expressions and have a favorite style that perl can mimic > > closely. Python people like to make fun of the perl concept that > > "there's more than one way to do it", but you'll often find in > > practice that the problem you need to solve is already 90% done and > > you just need some slight variation of your own. Perl generally > > lets you embed existing programs, run them and use their output, > > or you can even embed perl into an existing program to use its > > strengths. With an object oriented approach and a mentality that > > says there's only one way to do things, you'll end up throwing out > > working code that has years of testing behind it and repeating most > > of the old mistakes yourself. > > > Interesting points. What about this argument that Python scripts are more > intuitive/readable? Well, I don't share this opinion. I consider both Perl and Python to equally [un]readable and [un]maintainable, otherwise is would not have been possible for both languages to evolve a plethora of "modules". As far as scripts, you might want to write for occasional use (Such as "How do I rename/move/reformat these 5000 image files?") are concerned, to me Perl is a natural choice. As some people put it: "Perl is not much more than an extended sed" - It's an exaggeration, but there is a grain of truth in this statement, but ... that's exactly what you want for such "occasional quick'n'dirty scripts"! Both languages are suitable for midscale projects. For larger projects I would choose neither of them. Finally, there is another criterion, which had been neglected so far: Script languages often are used for "rapid prototyping" and "quick solutions" - There, personal knowledge and preference by far outweighs a language's pros/cons - It's implementation time that matters. Ralf
